Adapting Dialectical Behaviour Therapy: What Works? v.1
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Working title: Adapting Dialectical Behaviour Therapy for clients in a forensic learning disability service: A qualitative study of ‘what works’. Service user information title (more accessible/basic language): Adapting Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT): What works?
IRAS ID
182950
Contact name
Claire Browne
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Lancaster University
Clinicaltrials.gov Identifier
n/a, n/a
Duration of Study in the UK
0 years, 2 months, 3 days
Research summary
A number of forensic mental health services worldwide are delivering dialectical behavioural therapy (DBT) skills groups for service users who have intellectual disabilities (ID) to help them develop skills for managing their emotions. However, as DBT is a manualised intervention that employs quite complicated terminology and mnemonics and requires its group members to complete regular written homework tasks, significant adaptations have to made by the services delivering this skills group to ID service users. Despite a growing evidence base suggesting that DBT groups that have been adapted for the ID population are effective, there is no research or evidence-based guidance that clarifies what adaptations should be made and why. If each service makes different adaptations to the DBT groups they deliver, it is very difficult to reach conclusions about how effective DBT for forensic service users with ID actually is.
This study will recruit forensic secure mental health service users with an ID who have attended or are attending an adapted DBT skills group. Participants will attend a semi-structured interview expected to last between twenty minutes to one hour, during which they will be asked about their experiences of attending the adapted DBT skills group, with a focus on what was helpful or less helpful for them. In gathering these service user perspectives, this study will aim to fill the gap in the current literature base by generating a greater theoretical understanding of which aspects of the DBT intervention adapted for a forensic ID population are experienced by service users as working for them and how. This may help clinicians to make evidence-based decisions on what adaptations are beneficial to apply to DBT interventions for forensic ID service users, and may inform the development of new adaptations as well as teaching and training for staff.
REC name
North West - Liverpool Central Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
15/NW/0654
Date of REC Opinion
9 Sep 2015
REC opinion
Favourable Opinion